Learning experiences – Perspective from Michael Absolum
Gillian:
I’m sort of interested to know what you were hoping to achieve. What was your purpose in having that conversation after your workshop with her?
Michael:
Gillian begins the conversation by asking Barbara to reflect on her purpose in her conversation with Fran. It is Gillian’s role to help Barbara to reflect rather than to offer her own assessment, at least initially.
Barbara:
I was certainly hoping to challenge Fran in regards to where she found herself – the conflict she found herself in – in relation to her role as an RTLB (Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour) and that whole idea of her wanting to maintain the relationship with the principal. So yes, that was probably the area that I was wanting to focus on.
Gillian:
So tell me about challenging. Why did you want to challenge her? What was the significance of that?
Michael:
Gillian seeks to draw out Barbara’s understanding of the theory of support and challenge. The more fully Barbara understands the theory, the better positioned she is to critique her own practice against it. Gillian might be said to be “challenging Barbara’s understanding of support and challenge”.
Importantly, if Gillian feels she can add to Barbara’s understanding, she needs to be able to contribute her own expertise in order to enrich the basis for the later critique of the practice.
Barbara:
In my role as an adviser, I think it’s really important to look at being that critical friend, to actually help them to consider where they might need to look to their actions and help them to move forward in their thinking.
Gillian:
So what does challenge actually do?
Michael:
This is an elaboration on the previous reflective questions. Gillian seeks further explanation as a result of a generalised response from Barbara.
Barbara:
By challenging, or creating that dissonance, you can allow for thinking to happen, certainly allow for building on that thinking and into unpacking some new learning – and leading into hopefully some action which will be useful for a particular situation, whether it’s a problem or a concern/issue of practice.
Gillian:
So I guess what you’re saying here, then, is that challenge creates dissonance, that sort of thing where people start asking themselves questions about their behaviour. And that that’s when the new learning actually occurs. And hopefully that shift in thinking will lead to a change in practice – that’s basically what you’re on about there?
Michael:
Gillian fully summarises Barbara’s explanation. To do this well takes considerable skill as an active listener. Having one’s own understanding of being a critical friend also helps.
The summary provides Barbara with the opportunity to hear her own explanation as heard by Gillian, which in turn gives her an opportunity to reflect on her understanding and perhaps deepen it. It also allows Gillian to test whether Barbara accepts her understanding of Barbara’s explanation.
Barbara:
Absolutely. And I think for me, that’s been a real light-bulb moment since the beginning of last year. I didn’t realise just how important that creating of dissonance was and how powerful it could be to actually create those shifts.
Michael:
Barbara does accept Gillian’s summary. Hearing this summary also enables her to remember how important her own learning about the role of dissonance was.
Gillian:
That’s wonderful.
Michael:
Through this comment, Gillian affirms Barbara’s insight and celebrates her excitement about it. But there is a risk here, albeit small given the positive nature of the comment. Any evaluation in which the evidence for the evaluation is not given, or the limits to the evaluation are not clear, increases the possibility that the recipient will not be able to understand the basis for the evaluation and will become defensive, closing off to further learning. For Barbara, this risk could be avoided by Gillian elaborating on why it’s wonderful.
Gillian:
And, I just, I suppose when we think back to the video and you were wanting to challenge Fran, what did you actually see was happening in terms of your practice?
Michael:
Now that Gillian and Barbara have explicitly established a shared understanding of support and challenge, they are at the point where Gillian’s role is to “challenge” Barbara to examine the match between the theory and her practice. She does this by asking “What did you actually see was happening?”
Again there is a small risk here because there is no reason given for the question being asked. Gillian depends on a tacit agreement about the conversational process to carry the question. The risk disappears if Gillian contextualises her question, for example: “Now that we have a clear picture of the role of challenge, let’s see how what you actually did matches up with that theory. Are there any gaps?”
Barbara:
I gave her solutions. I actually did the problem solving.
Gillian:
OK. That’s what I observed too, actually.
Michael:
Gillian affirms Barbara’s analysis of the gap between her theory and her practice. She could equally tell Barbara what she has observed and ask her to agree or disagree. I doubt that there is any difference between the two approaches – somebody has to go first. If Gillian tells Barbara that she has observed her giving Fran solutions, that does not constitute Gillian giving Barbara solutions, just information (for which she should provide evidence if required).
It is quite possible to provide observations without being judgmental. Being non-judgmental is critical to ensuring that the other party does not close down and become defensive. Gillian is a source of information that enables Barbara to test the validity of her own assumptions, evidence, and reasoning.
Gillian:
And I just wondered what you were thinking when you, when you made that decision to problem-solve. Because I know that you’ve got a deep understanding of the whole issue around challenging. So what were the thoughts that were going through your mind when you decided to problem-solve for her?
Barbara:
I suspect it was definitely my emotions coming in there. It was very much around me not wanting to rock the boat on the professional relationship, certainly not wanting to put any fear into Fran about what she did do. So, yeah, I was compromising my beliefs.
Gillian:
Right. So there was a real conflict there between your beliefs and your actual …
Barbara:
Practice.
Gillian:
… practice …
Barbara:
Absolutely.
Gillian:
… in that instance.
Barbara:
Yes.
Gillian:
Yeah. I’m wondering whether perhaps you might be making a few assumptions about Fran, in terms of how she might react if she was challenged?
Michael:
Here Gillian does “provide information”. She contributes her own expertise by proposing a deeper level of explanation for Barbara’s actions that would explain the cause of the conflict. She could go further and describe the assumptions she thinks Barbara might be making so that Barbara has an opportunity to better understand Gillian’s insights and to test their validity.
Barbara:
Yes. Yes, I can see that, too. And probably I need to go back to Fran to actually talk through that … and maybe even try and identify with her what my role as a critical friend is about, and perhaps negotiate that role …
Michael:
Barbara accepts the explanation (the implicit description of her theory-in-use) and uses it to decide on the next course of action. But neither she nor Gillian is explicit about what those assumptions might be; there is therefore no opportunity to test whether their “assumptions about those assumptions” are correct.
If Gillian had been more explicit, this would have opened up the possibility that both she and Barbara could have subjected their assumptions to greater analysis and testing. By not doing this, there is the risk that the ensuing problem solving is based on incorrect assumptions.
Gillian:
Yeah, yeah.
Barbara:
… unpack my beliefs about what I think is important …
Gillian:
Right.
Barbara:
… and allowing me to perhaps move forward and to actually carry out that practice the way I think it should be carried out.
Gillian:
OK. That sounds like a really good strategy to me and some really good thinking about how you can overcome that sort of emotional fear that I think everybody feels. Certainly, I know personally, and from lots of advisers and RTLB I’ve talked to, that conflict between wanting to have the supportive relationship, the good relationship, and how do you challenge without creating tension? It’s a real dilemma and conflict for people. So that sounds like a good strategy: to negotiate the relationship right at the beginning.
Michael:
Gillian supports Barbara’s problem-solving strategy by agreeing with it and reassuring her that her theory-in-use, which led to the dilemma, is a very common one. She could also bring more of her expertise into play to explain the nature of the dilemma more fully.
Gillian:
I guess that one of the other things that’s quite interesting to think in that situation where you shifted into that problem-solving mode instead of doing what you really wanted to was thinking about who actually benefits in that situation.
Barbara:
And I think that was yet again another “aha” moment on the video. I looked and I thought, “Neither of us benefited”. And I doubt whether the people that Fran was serving would have benefited either. And that I problem … or tried to problem-solve for Fran, and how do I know that’s going to meet her needs? And certainly I didn’t benefit because I compromised my beliefs. And it was really clear on the video – what I did. And I probably put myself sort of more into that expert role, instead of the collaborative role that I really believe is important.
Gillian:
Right.
Michael:
This conversation is particularly successful in enabling Barbara to reflect on what she did and to compare it with the theory she holds about what she should have done. Gillian keeps Barbara reflecting on the comparison between the two sources of information. It is this comparative exercise that will cause dissonance (and learning) if Barbara detects a gap or conflict between the two.
The conversation might be even more effective if Gillian contributes more of her own expertise when appropriate. I recommend a fluid protocol for being a critical friend, in which the focus is kept on the “learner” but with both parties able to mine the knowledge and skills of the critical friend as appropriate.
